this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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The article doesn't address it, maybe someone here can.. what does "consumed" mean? Where does the water go after it's used to cool? Surely it's reusable, right?
That’s actually a fantastic use of resources. Their chillers probably work much for efficiently. It’s similar to traditional power plants.
No, it isn't. The key conceit is they are removing water from the river and evaporating it.
The water isn't 'lost' it is still part of the hydrosphere, but it is made non-local. That water goes into the air and will go on to be rain in some place far away from the community where it was sourced. This will absolutely contrubute to local droughts and water insecurity.
To add to what the other person said, I went looking and couldn’t find any solid answers. Part of it might be that Google considers their water use details as proprietary information they’re not keen on sharing, and there’s so many sites in so many different jurisdictions that I’d be surprised if there was an overarching solution.
I thought this article went into it decently: https://time.com/5814276/google-data-centers-water/
We have this amazing process for saving water. Shame on other company for not using a similar method. By the way we aren’t sharing how we do it and if you happen to do a similar method and release those details we will likely cry corporate espionage.
They're saving water the same way VW lowered their emissions (lying about it).